bombus

A really heavy dose of influenza gives pretty good hallucinations too.

I'd still say that in general hallucinogenic drugs are the safest method, particularly LSD which is very clean compared to mushrooms and 'natural' hallucinogens.

I must say that I really wouldn't recommend them though. They're best left well alone!

P.S. one other method is to sit in a totally dark room for 48 hours.

The plank constant is the size of pixels in the simulation that we inhabit!

You seem to have missed the point that even sterile workers can influence the reproductive success of their non-sterile sisters/brothers, and hence influence the overall gene pool in their direction.

No, I didn't miss the point. Its just that the 'ability' of sterile workers is based upon the genes of the queen. They cannot themselves influence evolution, as any ability they have to influence the gene pool was already 'coded' before they were born - in the queens genes.

I'm not sure, and will find out, but I think the evolving bit only involved the fertile queens 'inventing' the idea of 'sister' sterile workers.

Oh, and in answer to THEDARKSHADE the point of the thread wasn't really about aliens per se. It was about evolution (via natural selection), and what is possible and what is not.

Natural selection on genes does not have to make sense! It has to be fit in time/environment up to modern form is all! If AIDS became an airborne threat there is already a very small percentage of the worlds populous that are naturally immune via mutation, they would be the only ones to have a real chance of survival from just the AIDS variable.

Yes, but that makes sense and I can't see how it has anything to do with bees! If you were immune to AIDS but sterile, you wouldn't pass any genes on, no matter how immune you were!

The sterile workers didn't evolve at all. It is only the queens/drones that evolved to produce sterile workers.

This doesn't fully explain things though. Social insects produce sterile offspring that don't pass on their genes, and these provide for the colony. How could such a thing evolve if evolution only worked at the level of the individual.

Well, the queen bee (or wasp, ant, termite) and drones pass on the genes. All the workers are offspring, but never pass on their genes. But their effectiveness depends on the queen's 'fitness' and the 'fitness' of the drone that she mated with. 'Successful' (fit) queens produce effective workers, who ensure that her fertile offspring (young queens and young drones) leave the nest at the right time and spread her genes (well, 50% of them).

The sterile offspring are really no more than 'arms and legs' of the queen (and drone). The better your arms and legs, the better chance of passing your genes on.

Lucaspa,

You present that theory as if it is the accepted one. The 'running raptor' theory is only one possible explanation. This has not been proven - although highly possible, as is the 'tree down' theory.

What's really gonna knock your socks off, Bombus, is when you realize that the opposite is also true, and that it's really the playing off of these two favorings that makes this country work as well as it does.

I'd have to disagree with you. Who is actually winning? Who gets the nice life? Who gets the money, power, privilage? Who does the system ultimately benefit? Who does most of the dying to maintain this system?

Ho ho ho, how blindly jingoistic you US citizens can be! Do you honestly think I'd be upset if you said UK elections were rigged? Anyway, I nonetheless agree that rigged is a bit strong, but it was a judicial coup, made possible by denying the vote to black and other likely democrat voters.

Basically, all I was trying to say is that it's a bit rich for the US to say that the Russian election was dodgy! Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone etc..

Also, as I have often said, I am not anti-American. I am anti-capitalist, and anti Bush, and anti right-wing, but not anti-American.

I think the checks and balances DO help, in that we would be much worse off without them. What I might agree with you on is that certain elements of society (including some elements you may typically favor) have gotten better at working around those checks and balances, and that they need improvement.

There are many good checks and balances in the US that protect citizens freedoms and rights in principle. However, in general the US system favours the companies, the establishment, the rich, and allows the poor and middle classes to be ripped off and the environment damaged. The checks and balances that are in place end up being ineffective but pacify the people allowing the rip-off to continue.

I think we've gone a bit off-topic here:-)

That seems about right, so long as the late developers don't end up taking over and so leaving the whole colony defenseless. I'd agree that it would work somewhat at the group level, but I'd suggest that the warriors would go to extra trouble to protect their own family. If there were social expectations, this could complicate things too.

The thing is, at what point does it become a disadvantage to the individual to be a late developer. Probably never! Thusly the species would 'evolve' into exinction (if it lived on such a violent world). An evolutionary bottleneck, such as cheetahs are probably in: cheetahs sacrifice power for speed. At some point in the future they will not be able to catch AND kill their prey (which can keep getting lighter and faster - unlike the cheetah).

The extra effort to defend their families would complicate matters though.

No. Even when not reproducing, he can affect his relatives, either positively or negatively. If the colony had more need of the warriors than it had of the food to feed them, then they would be positively affecting their relatives in the colony; hence those who were better fighters past their reproductive years would be likelier to pass on their genes than if not.

Yes, I can see what you are saying, and it sounds believable. Basically, those individuals that can protect their offspring better than others are more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation because their offspring don't die before they breed. This could presumably work at the group level (not just at the family level).

However, according to accepted science, evolution only works at the level of individuals passing on more of their genes.

On that note, surely it would be an advantage for an individual in a colony to be a late developer so delaying the onset of a post-reproductive phase and carry on mating, while others (who have become warriors) defend his genes.

Thus in the next generation there would be more late developers than there would otherwise be, ad infinitum???

I share the same opinion too! There is enough diversity with two sexes too!

 

 

In what way he becomes like that? If you don't mind explaining...

Well, these were ideas in sci-fi books (Ian M Banks novels) and it didn't explain. It just happens after a certain point in the life of Idirans, which are 9 ft tall three legged aliens:

Physique

Full-grown Idirans stand about three meters tall on a tripod of legs and have two arms. There is some hint of fully trilateral symmetry in their ancestry, as a third, vestigial, arm has evolved into a chest-flap which the Idirans use to create loud, booming warning signals. They have a saddle-shaped head with two eyes at each end of the saddle.

Idirans are biologically immortal and are very resilient to physical damage as they are protected by a natural keratinous body-armour and can withstand catastrophic damage and even remain conscious, though they do not naturally regenerate. They are dual hermaphrodites, each half of a couple impregnating the other. After one or two pregnancies Idirans lose their fertility and develop into the warrior stage, reaching greater size and weight, the armour hardening fully. Idiran warriors are capable of taking enormous amounts of damage and can survive massive trauma that would kill a human being instantly-for example, losing a large fraction of their head.

The biological immortality was a result of their evolution as the 'top monster on a planet full of monsters', where strong natural selection pressure and a strong background radiation (causing mutations) prevented the biological immortality from stifling the evolution of the species

My feeling is a three-legged animal might exist, but it would probably still be bilaterally symmetrical along the direction of movement. Like, one of the legs would be the "back leg." (Like a Pierson's Puppeteer.) Trilateral symmetry might also be possible in some very specific environments, or in organisms that don't move very much. The environment I have in mind specifically is from another Larry Niven novel, the Integral Trees, where essentially there is an atmosphere without a planet, and everything is in freefall all the time...

Good answer. Yes, maybe even in four limbed creatures a third leg could start off as a tail and become progressively more limb like?

I like the idea of the Integral trees. Three limbs could be very useful in that sort of '3D' environment. Orangutans have in effect four arms, rather than two arms and two legs, so presumably three arms in a 3 D environment may be better than two, but then maybe four is even better - how about five!. Reptiles, birds and mammals have a pentadactyl limbs, and two arms, two legs and a head = five, so there are probably very old genetic codes for five 'things' within Earth creatures...

I met a farmer once who raised three-legged chickens. You could see them speeding around the yard like roadrunners; they were so *fast*. The farmer figured he'd get more money for them because of the extra drumstick. Unfortunately, he could never catch one to see how it tasted.

nyuk nyuk:-)

Can you show us how this would be the case?

Sexual reproduction passes on 50% of the genes from each sex (50% from the father, 50% from the mother). This is true in hermaphrodites as well. Three sexes would cut this down to 33.3% each, four sexes 25% each etc...

Why though? I'm pretty certain alien life is probably nothing like Earth life, or evolved anything like Earth-life in most things (except mabye in being carbon based, but that's about it). Hell, about as recently as 400 million years ago (when the first land creatures made an appearance), the atmosphere on Earth was toxic to humans...

I think the issue is that they all ultimately have to follow the laws of Physics, which biology is based on.

And, 8-9 sexes seem to work for molds, and other unusual anatomies can be seen right here on Earth; so why not intelligent, technology wielding creatures on other worlds?

But in moulds only two sexes are actually involved in any single reproductive act.

I would have to disagree with you there. Many genetic-based diseases in humans (i.e. Alzheimer's) usually kick in long after their reproductive stage. I'm pretty sure that anything beneficial could also have evolved to take place long after reproductive age (if anyone would like to show examples of Earth life that does exactly this, please do so).

Mmm. I think the fact that Alzheimers still exists as a disease may be because it cannot be 'weeded out' by evolutionary processes as it in general occurs after the reproductive phase.

===========================

In fact, I do have a question for most of you here; Why would life on another planet, intelligent or otherwise, have to be anything like we see here on Earth? Hell, even Earth life is very diverse and bears little resemblance to each other between specific ecosystems and geographical locations.

Again, probably due to the laws of physics, and the fact that nature likes simple solutions - even if they create complex systems when they interact together.

Lucaspa, you have misunderstood so many of my arguments that i shall just restate it from the start and very clearly for you, else we'll end up going all over the place.

I maintain that our current multitude of types of Homo sapiens are developed from a basic stock of humans comprising three (or four) sub-species.

These sub-species were/are:

1. Caucoisoid (an inaccurate term including modern Europeans, Mediterraneans, Persians, Afghans, Northern Indians, Western Russians etc)

2. Negroid (Sub-saharan Africans)

3. Mongaloid: (Chinese, Japanese, Inuit, ongls, North American and South American 'Indians' etc)

4. Australoid (Veddans, Australian aborigines, Ainu, Uralics) Some class this as a sub-group of 1.

There has been much mixing of these basic 'sub-species' producing a multitude of groups that show a range of morphological features. However, the basic sub-species are still around and are readily distinguishable by geographical location.

Just so you are absolutely clear, I DO KNOW that humans are not divided in scientific textbooks into sub-species, that's not the point. The point is whether we could (and be scientifically correct) if we chose to do so.

One other thing, regarding Apes and Humans, I said Genus but should have said Family. The point was to illustrate that taxonomy is often arbitrary - as is the 'decision' NOT to sub-divide humans into sub-species.

Also, Melanesians are not related to Negroid people. They have developed their characteristics independently.

I am correct!

Thanks for the messages above.

My own thoughts are...

1. Three-legged locomotion although possible (as is tri-radial symmetry etc) is probably not as efficient as having two, four, six, eight, etc legs. i.e., it is likely that there must be some selection factor that favours an even number of legs. However, as mentioned above, it could have been pure chance, and if starfish had colonized land first maybe we'd have something different.

Despite this, I can't imagine how three legs could be an advantage over two...

2. I was indeed referring to three sexes being involved in reproduction. I would guess that the advantages of mixing up genes (improved chances of resistance to pathogens etc) is fine with two sexes as each individual still passes on 50% of its genes to the next generation. If one moves to three sexes, any individual only passes on 33.3% of genes. The advantage of resistance is probably outweighed by the disadvantage of passing less genes on, so two sexes is the best.

Thus, I guess that three sexes (or more) involved in reproduction is probably unecessary anywhere in the universe. Nature doesn't like waste afterall !

Here's another one for you (still keep commenting on the first two though!)

An individual of an alien race, once 50 years old, loses its ability to reproduce and becomes a pure warrior to defend the colony (it develops a hardened carapace, huge size, immense strength etc).

I don't think this can evolve if it occurs in the post reproductive phase. Am I correct?

Are there any scenarios that would favour the evolution of three legged aliens?

Are there any scenarios that could favour three (or more) sexes involved in reproduction?

These are two things that I have read in sci-fi that I don't think are likely...

Apparently.

 

Of course, even as I laugh at Bombus' wacky dictatorship comment, I am reminded that Florida voters presently have no say in the current Democratic presidential race, having been disenfranchised by their own party, and Republican voters only get half credit, and all because the state simply changed its primary date. And three or four other states are in the same boat, and nobody in the media is saying anything about the greatest disenfranchisement of voters in the entire history of the US because it plays right into their drama-based agenda. Jesse Jackson was happy to march in 2000 when a few thousand fools punched their cards wrong, but when millions are robbed by the elite power structure of this country, nobody cares.

 

We may not be a dictatorship, but we're too damned close to an oligarchy sometimes.

I agree, it's a dictatorship by 'The Companies' - so really an Oligarchy.

The checks and balances don't really help much though do they? They pacify the population by making them believe the system must therefore be fair. They don't really work on the BIG issues. The checks and balances, and the supposed 'democracy' ensure that the status quo always remains, with very very little change!

I don't see how blaming it all on the Zionist Jews is any more accurate or helpful than blaming it all on Palestinians. The underlying issue isn't which side started it, but the "an eye for an eye" mentality.

My point is that 'it' started when Zionist Jews siezed by force land that was previously occupied by a peaceful Palestinian people who were willing to let displaced Jews settle in their country.

It's like allowing someone in need to live in your house only to find them taking ownership and forcing you to live in the garage! I'm sure you'd be mad about it.

Why not? This struggle is over land... over some arbitrary point on some arbitrary blue dot in some arbitrary moat of dust surrounding some arbitrary star.

 

I'd suggest it makes all the difference in the world. It's like arguing over who owns particle antiparticle pairs which pop into and out of some nano existence... and... IMO... the whole thing is incredibly ignorant and outdated (buy hey... that's religion for ya).

Can I have your house and land then please, if you find it so arbitrary:-)

They don't fit the definition of sub-species.

 

Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology:

"Subspecies: A taxonomic term for populations of a species that are distinguishable by one or more characteristics, and are given a subspecific name (e.g. the spuspecies of the rat snake Elaphe obsoleta; se Figure 21 in Chapter 9). In zoology, subpecies have different (allopatric or parapatric) geographical distributions, so are equivalent to "geographic races;" in botany, they may be sympatric forms. No criteria specify how different populations should be to warrent designation as subspecies, so some systematists have argued that the practice of naming subspecies should be abandoned." pg 450

According to the above, I'd say they do - or at least, the 'races' we have today developed from three (four?) sub-species.

"Race: A vague, meaningless term, sometimes equivalent to subspecies and sometimes to polymorphic genetic forms within a population."

Agreed.

None of the "races" you mention have been given sub-species names.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean a thing. E.g., Humans belong the Genus Homo, but Apes are classed as Pongo, for no specific reason apart from the fact that they are not human!

The "races" you named are too large to develop into different species. And, of course, with human transportation NONE of them are isolated.

Agreed, but not really on topic. The question was whether different races could develop into different species if isolated. It only takes some members each race (however one defines them) to be isolated for new species to emerge.

There is no precise definition of species, but that doesn't mean the term is fuzzy. It simply means that evolution is true: since species change from one to another gradually over generations, any definition of species is always going to be able to find a population in that transition.

Agreed.

"

Races" is a meaningless term, as Futuyma (and the Scientific American article) note and demonstrate. "Races" are not the same as biological populations.

Agreed.

But the variation is still very low compared to other species. The whole variation within the entire human species is less than within one population of chimps in western Africa!

Not according to the Radio 4 program I recently listened to with the guy who mapped the human genome. Anyway, genetic difference is not necessarily relevant.

Humans can be divided into populations. See my post. But "races" are not those populations! Each "race" as you defined it consists of dozens/hundreds of populations.

Yes, but that doesn't affect the argument.

What's your source, Bombus? This might be a way to define populations. It is not a way to define "species". It is closest to the phenetic species concept: which is based on morphological/physiological differences. However, "a particular ritual breeding behavior" nor only "number or primary wing feathers" can be criteria, because number of primary wing feathers can vary from individual to individual.

The quoted source was Wiki, but I was taught it in University. Basically, although human races are not divided into subspecies, if the 'rules' were applied to humans one could quite correctly divide us up into three or four subspecies.

The phenetic species concept was the one used in Darwin's time and is still applied to fossils. It is NOT the one used between contemporary sexually reproducing species -- such as humans.

Maybe, but again, doesn't really affect my argument.

This one doesn't exist. You are misrepresenting the biological species concept. That concept states:

 

Biological species are defined as "different species represent different gene pools, which are goups of interbreeding or potentially interbreeding individuals that do not exchange genes with other such groups." D Futuyma Evolutionary Biology pg 27. Notice how you have changed "do not exchange genes" to "flow of genetic material ... is small". You have warped the terminology to suit your own ends.

No idea what your on about there?? Are you on drugs?

Bombus, the history in the last 400 years have conclusively demonstrated that humans from all races can mate and produce viable offspring.

And?

There are none of "even if the two groups were to be placed together they would not interbreed to any great extent".

Well, now we are in the 21st Century obviously not! But humans are probably starting to merge as a single 'race'/sub-species, from three/four 'historical' ones.

Humans of different the different "races" interbreed quite freely to a great extent. You only have to look at the statistics on how many "Negroids" in the US have "Caucasian" genes. The Caucasian slaveholders interbred with their Negroid slaves "to a great extent".

Sub-species can freely breed with each other and produce fertile offspring.

Fascinating!

 

It is interesting how other organisms work. Bees for example, I think they are a miracle in itself! The way that the colony is organized is absolutely amazing. Then the cells that have the hexagonal form, that's not a coincidence because that form is the best to cover maximal space.

 

Then termites, the blind architects! They build "homes" feets high, with even conditioning holes, and all that with their blindness!

 

It's fascinating!

Indeed! The natural world is totally amazing. Just a shame we're killing it all off!

http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html

I don't see how blaming it all on Israelis is any more accurate (or helpful) than blaming it all on Palestinians.

Not all Israelis are Zionist Jews. Not all Israelis are Jews. Not all Jews are Zionist. Not all Jews in Israel are Zionist.

Anyway. My point was only to highlight the underlying issue to the current 'problem'.

Good post Lockheed!

Didn't God order the Jews to completely exterminate the previous inhabitants of that land? All those problems due to not completely exterminating those people, eh

 

--

 

I think that we should recreate the dinosaurs from their DNA fragments, and return the land to its rightful reptilian overlords. They've been there waaay earlier than both the Jews and the Palestines.

The bacteria were there before the Dinos!

To bombus

 

Of course interbreeding between two sub species will cancel out the sub species if that interbreeding is total. However, if a hybrid population forms only in one place, then the two sub species remain distinct elsewhere, and thus still exist.

Maybe I misunderstood you.

However, I maintain that human races as described above can be considered sub-species, although I accept that it may depend on exactly what definition is used. As there is no universally accepted definition of species (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_concept#Definitions_of_species)

there can't really be one for sub-species...

'd like to know what a giant ape is supposed to eat +3000m in the Himalayan Mountains.

Much of the Himalayan area is well below this - hence Yaks and other wildlife surviving there. I just think that the area is so vast and unpopulated there is more of a chance that a Yeti could be there but undetected. I don't think the same is true for Bigfoot.

There's a whole other discussion right there over whether multiregionalism is bunk. I tend to think it decidedly is.

From what I've read, there's convincing arguments on both sides. I remain undecided.

I think Putin was a good choice.

I agree. He has stopped his people being fleeced by the multinationals, oligarchs and gangsters. He doesn't crumble as soon as the companies raise their eyebrows like western leaders.

Al Gore should have run for President. He'd have won hands down this time.

How on Earth could anyone think Putin was a good choice? He had just finished converting Russia back into a dictatorship by staging a rigged election, and he gets lauded by the west? Ludicrous!

The USA is a dictatorship. You are just made to think you have a say! All you get to vote on is colour of the ship, not the direction it's going. The West exports capitalism, not democracy.

And the USA should know all about rigged elections. You had one in 2000 remember!

So why don't the poor become "clever accountants"?

I do hope you are joking!

Simpler almost always equals better.

That depends! A Poll Tax would be simplest, but it woudn't be fair!

Most, excluding perhaps those that directly or indirectly benefit from or profit off of unecessary complexity, would agree that better = fairer in the case of taxes. Tax on goods seems like it should and could be the most simple.

A tax on goods burdens the poorest. A simple progressive income tax with no loopholes for clever accountants to exploit is the fairest!